Friday, 25 March 2016

John Paul Young was right. Love is everywhere; it is as perennial as the grass and, as common as the stars in the sky.

I had the good luck to shoot these gorgeous girls last weekend.

It was supposed to be a bad weather weekend; 90% chance of rain but, Mother Nature was kind to us and gave us a fantastic afternoon. Lovely blue skies with just a hint of cloud. The weatherman should have hung his head in shame for getting it so wrong. Either way, we were going out to get photos!

Daena and Jess are a couple of down to earth, intelligent girls. Switched on; knowing what they want out of life and getting out there to grab it with both hands. They're an inspiration to young people who want to get ahead and have their feet planted on Terra Firma.

The location for this shoot was Green Point Reserve at Belmont, on the shores of Lake Macquarie. There is a beautiful big tree as you walk into the reserve and a path that takes you to a jetty and then down further to green parkland and BBQ area. The path will take you through some bush and further north to Valentine and up to Speers Point.

The girls were heaps of fun; lots of laughs were had that afternoon.

I love tattoos, and these two have some awesome body art!

Photos edited in Nik Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro and Lightroom 5.

Contact me if you are interested in having some portraits done, I'd love to hear from you!

The photos on this Blog Post and corresponding Google+ profile are copyright

Friday, 18 March 2016

I never seem to be out after dark to get photos. No superstitious nonsense involved but I just figure that once the Sun goes down then I should just be chillin' at home with a glass of red wine.

It was hard but, the other night I let the wine stay in the bottle and went out.

Problem with going out for night shots in Newcastle is that the nightlife doesn't kick in until 11pm or thereabouts and there is no way I am gonna stay up that late to get street photos of night revellers. Why can't they come out at an earlier time so I can capture them done up in their finest nightclub attire, wandering aimlessly about on the streets?

Anyway, I decided that the place to visit would be Port Hunter. There are lots of lights from the boardwalk and across the port to the coal loading docks at Kooragang. One place that is lit up nicely is the Queens Wharf Hotel on Wharf Road. Some nice restaurants and a lovely balmy night made for some great photos.

There is a lookout tower on Port Hunter. It is an odd shape which has earned it the name of ah..... err..... The 'Dildo' (google it and look at the shape, I'm sure you may agree...) Anyway the Dildo ....oops I should say Lookout Tower is locked at night but you can get up a short way to join the walkway over the rail line into the Newcastle CBD and Hunter St Mall. It was a perfect night for some long exposure photography.

I had packed my Marumi ND8 filter and that was sufficient to slow down the shutter speed for some shots to 40 seconds or so. Just right to get that lovely smooth looking water whilst all non moving stuff still appeared sharp.

Special mention goes to the photo of the War Memorial statue. I loved the way that the light from the front of the statue outlined the front and created a light shade toward the back. It is a HDR photo (and a long exposure) from 3 bracketed exposures at +/-2 EV.

Very happy with these results and they are in my 'To Be Printed' album.

Saturday, 5 March 2016

Well I gotta apologize for what appears to be a lack of interest on my blog of late, 2 months with no post is unforgivable!

But sometimes you get caught up doing other stuff that needs to be done and, between that other stuff and working, sleeping and eating, there is just not enough time left to dedicate to getting out and about with a camera.

Anyway, about a week ago, I managed to escape and get out and about for the afternoon.

I drove north to Port Stephens (about an hours drive from home). There is a beautiful area out at Shoal Bay called the Tomaree National Park. Lots of walks, great views overlooking Shoal Bay from the top of Mt Tomaree. At the foot of Mt Tomaree, on the other side of the peninsula from Shoal Bay, is Zenith Beach. A quiet, secluded beach that never seems to have anyone on it.

There must be a sandbar off the beach area because as the waves roll in they suddenly crash over something as if they have been tripped. This might make it a little difficult for a swim; after they hit the sandbar they certainly come crashing down hard!

It is a nice place to relax, listening to the crashing waves and looking out toward Boondelbah Island off the coast to the north east across the sea. I'd been there for about half an hour when the weather started to close in.

And that's another thing! What is it with the weather of late? It is either pouring with rain and thunderstorms or it's hot, like, 38 degrees Celsius. When it is that hot, tramping around the countryside toting camera gear is not conducive to good, clear headed thinking!

After my sojourn to Zenith Beach (which I will visit again for a sunrise safari) I headed back into town to Carrington. A suburb of Newcastle situated on the Hunter River it has an amazing wharf of fishing boats, pleasure craft and other stuff that I love to take photos of!

By now the weather had turned and I was waiting for the downpour to start. I had wanted to try and get some long exposure shots of the boats. Problem is that boats don't sit still for any man on a long exposure shot. The idea was to get 3 bracketed exposures +/- 2 EV with 2 x ND8 stacked filters. This would give a lovely soft silky water and cloud when merged and the software would remove any ghosting caused by slight movement of the boat. It worked for some, although on the longer bracketed exposures the movement of the boats was even too much for the software to adjust so, I removed the blurred photo and just merged 2 exposures. Still got some good results!

I have been planning my next photo safaris. Google Maps and the Photographers Ephemeris play and integral part in my planning. I have a couple of weeks off from the 10th March and plan to put it to good use!